Transient parametric pilot study on thermosyphon heat transport device: A computational fluid dynamics hypothesis and experimental exploration

This study aims to examine the practicality of a novel passive heat transport system “thermosyphon heat transport device” (THTD). It is a fluid-filled unit, with both source and sink amalgamated within it. A vertical tube-in-tube design has been incorporated, consisting of heat source, adiabatic height, and sink. To showcase the performance, a transient numerical analysis is performed using ANSYS Fluent, which is compared with the simple closed thermosiphon (SCT) for heat transport capability (1 kW) and different adiabatic heights (0.25, 1, and 1.5 m). Also, the influence of axial conduction is examined. The proposed Therminol VP1-based THTD has better heat transport capability over SCT due to a uniform flow pattern. Although the time response diminishes with adiabatic height, the novelty is justified as the heat gained by THTD (adiabatic height: 1.5 m) is 1.5 times more than SCT. Furthermore, the THTD performance is experimentally analyzed by varying the coolant flow rate (0.01, 0.02, and 0.03 kg/s), heat load (100−600 W), and transport distance (0.25 and 0.75 m), which yielded 80%−90% energy efficiency. As the THTD is crucial for a conceptual solar indoor cooker, the response under transient heating/cooling conditions is also investigated, which depicted 300 s for transient heating and 10−50 s for transient cooling.